"May I ask what the gentleman was like?"
"Your friend is easy to describe," replied the official. "He is
old and strong and beautiful, with white hair and a sabre-cut
across his face. You cannot fail to recognise so marked a person."
"No, indeed," returned Francis; "and I thank you for your
politeness."
"He cannot yet be far distant," added the clerk. "If you make
haste you might still overtake him."
Francis did not wait to be twice told; he ran precipitately from
the theatre into the middle of the street and looked in all
directions. More than one white-haired man was within sight; but
though he overtook each of them in succession, all wanted the
sabre-cut. For nearly half-an-hour he tried one street after
another in the neighbourhood, until at length, recognising the
folly of continued search, he started on a walk to compose his
agitated feelings; for this proximity of an encounter with him to
whom he could not doubt he owed the day had profoundly moved the
young man.
It chanced that his way lay up the Rue Drouot and thence up the Rue
des Martyrs; and chance, in this case, served him better than all
the forethought in the world. For on the outer boulevard he saw
two men in earnest colloquy upon a seat. One was dark, young, and
handsome, secularly dressed, but with an indelible clerical stamp;
the other answered in every particular to the description given him
by the clerk.
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